The
Teutoburg Woods,
where Arminius beat the Romans, thus depriving our ancestors of Latin
culture.
The
Western Woods
have cold winds constantly blowing.
The Vienna Woods, where
Crown Prince Rudolph killed his mistress and himself.
The Saxon Woods with
old Bismarck grumbling about our last and least
Kaiser Wilhelm II.
The
Ardennes Woods
and the Third Reich's final offensive on the western front before Germany was
cut into pieces.
|
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Deep in the woods, lost and hungry:
Hänsel and Gretel approach the witch's house made of gingerbread. |
You must remember this: A kiss is still a kiss, but also,
It's the same old story, A fight for love and glory when a poor but clever guy liberates a beautiful princess in a haunted castle hidden deep in the woods and wants to marry her. Father King dislikes the idea and stresses the young man with three usually unsolvable problems. Using witchcraft or other tricks, the nobody eventually succeeds and becomes heir to the throne. The young people live happily thereafter until
they die; if they did not, they still live on today.
Enough of those atavistic reflections. Instead, let me dig into the BZ article: The Trees and We. I learned that German attachment to their woods dates back to the Middle Ages when arable farmland was scarce and generally insufficient to feed families with many children, given the poor agricultural yield. There was no room for pastureland; thus, farmers drove horses, cows, and pigs into the woods to look for their food. Those pigs were particularly happy. They ate acorns and beechnuts for lunch, dug for cockchafer grubs for dinner, and closed their meals with truffles.
The woods generally belonged to the nobles who charged the farmers rental for their use. While only a few Pfennigs sufficed initially, in later years, the owner asked for more so that the expression Schweinegeld (pigs' money) was coined, and today, it still means that something is costly.
The noble class took good care of their woods as hunting grounds. A good example is the Prussian king's deer garden that once stretched in Berlin from the Brandenburg Gate to Charlottenburg Palace. The Tiergarten became public when, during the 1848 Revolution, people got the right to smoke there in public. Were the authorities at that time more liberal than today?
Most of our woods were spared in the 19th century as contrary to England, the Industrial Revolution in Germany came later, and coal from the Ruhr satisfied the need for heat. A notable exception is the Black Forest, where glasswork and smelting demanded enormous amounts of wood. However, the Baden people were clever and soon started an afforestation program.
Another vital use of wood was and still is housing. Although building in stone diminishes the fire risk, only those people who were steinreich (stone rich) could afford to build stone houses in the past.
Enough of those atavistic reflections. Instead, let me dig into the BZ article: The Trees and We. I learned that German attachment to their woods dates back to the Middle Ages when arable farmland was scarce and generally insufficient to feed families with many children, given the poor agricultural yield. There was no room for pastureland; thus, farmers drove horses, cows, and pigs into the woods to look for their food. Those pigs were particularly happy. They ate acorns and beechnuts for lunch, dug for cockchafer grubs for dinner, and closed their meals with truffles.
The woods generally belonged to the nobles who charged the farmers rental for their use. While only a few Pfennigs sufficed initially, in later years, the owner asked for more so that the expression Schweinegeld (pigs' money) was coined, and today, it still means that something is costly.
The noble class took good care of their woods as hunting grounds. A good example is the Prussian king's deer garden that once stretched in Berlin from the Brandenburg Gate to Charlottenburg Palace. The Tiergarten became public when, during the 1848 Revolution, people got the right to smoke there in public. Were the authorities at that time more liberal than today?
Most of our woods were spared in the 19th century as contrary to England, the Industrial Revolution in Germany came later, and coal from the Ruhr satisfied the need for heat. A notable exception is the Black Forest, where glasswork and smelting demanded enormous amounts of wood. However, the Baden people were clever and soon started an afforestation program.
Another vital use of wood was and still is housing. Although building in stone diminishes the fire risk, only those people who were steinreich (stone rich) could afford to build stone houses in the past.
*
Today (27 July 2010) I read in the Badische Zeitung a modern Version of Hänsel und Gretel. Hänsel (6) and Gretel (12) couldn't bear their permanently quarreling parents anymore. One day they left home early in the morning. When they didn't show up the police started looking for them. After an extended search the cops eventually liberated them from a fast food restaurant where they were eating burgers instead of gingerbread.
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